Mum's the word as USS Salt Lake sails to junk yard

You probably don't know this, but there's a submarine named the USS Salt Lake City. The United States Navy wants you to know this.

Which is why Tracy Howard, commander of the submarine, visits Salt Lake City occasionally, as he did recently. He meets with government leaders, schools, media and members of the 716 Club, which promotes the sub (named after the sub's hull number).

"It's important to take the opportunity to educate the people," Capt. Howard said over breakfast.

There are two problems with this promotional effort: He can't talk about what the sub actually does. Well, he could, but then he'd have to kill you.

The other problem: The Navy is decommissioning the USS Salt Lake City, which is a polite way of saying they're sending it to the junk yard.

So maybe we're having this conversation too late.

They're going to take the submarine from its home port of San Diego to Portsmouth, Maine, where the nuclear fuel will be removed, and then it will be towed to a submarine graveyard in Bremerton, Wash. I asked Howard when the ship will leave for Portsmouth.

"I can't say," he said. "It's classified."

See what I mean? The Navy loves publicity for its subs — to garner public support and funding — but they can't tell you much about them. They're not known as the "Silent Service" for nothing.

"We're trying to break that silence as much as we can," Howard said.

Which isn't much. Ever notice that you never hear about subs in the news, while you hear plenty about aircraft carriers and ships? They don't even put hull numbers or names on the sides of subs, as they do on surface ships.

Ask Howard what the USS Salt Lake City has been up to during the past 20 years, and you don't get far. You might as well ask Kyle Whittingham what his game plan is the night before a game.

"I can't get into specifics," Howard said. "It's done normal sub duty. Things you see in the news."

If there was a conflict, the SLC was somewhere in the area. It carries torpedoes and missiles and performs surveillance and reconnaissance work.

"We (subs) have the advantage of stealth," Howard said. "No one knows we're there."

Hence the silence.